Showing posts with label HP Envy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HP Envy. Show all posts

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Finally updated to 11.10

Sorry for the long delay! I'm glad to see that activity has been high.
I just updated to Ubuntu 11.10.

I've only been using it about a day and it seems that everything is actually working. I haven't tried HDMI out yet. VGA_Switcheroo is infact installed by default and usable. Sound, WIFI and the trackpad all work out of the box.
Battery life could be better. However the battery icon does in fact work!

I'm not a fan of the desktop though. I'm going to switch it up to the original Gnome desktop. I'll provide help on that later today.

What issues are y'all seeing with 11.10?

Monday, January 17, 2011

Battery Life Review

In a previous post I was asked what I was seeing when it came to power usage on the laptop. I thought it'd be interesting to do some tests and see what I could find.
Here's how I setup the computer:
  • Brightness = Max 100% (10)
  • On Demand CPU performance on = ( echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor)
  • Sound card power management enabled = (echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save)
  • File System power saving = ON ( sudo echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs)

First Test
Wifi-Bluetooth-Web Browser (Chromium) = ON
ATI Discrete Graphics = ON
Intel Graphics = ONd
Power Usage = 54.1W
Second Test
Wifi-Bluetooth-Web Browser (Chromium) = ON
ATI Discrete Graphics = ON
Intel Graphics = OFF
Power Usage = 59.4W

Third Test
Wifi-Bluetooth-Web Browser (Chromium) = ON
ATI Discrete Graphics = OFF
Intel Graphics = ON
Power Usage = 17.7W


Fourth Test
Wifi-Web Browser (Chromium) = ON
BlueTooth = OFF
ATI Discrete Graphics = OFF
Intel Graphics = ON
Power Usage = 17.7W

Fifth Test
Wifi-Web Browser (Chromium) = OFF
BlueTooth = OFF
ATI Discrete Graphics = OFF
Intel Graphics = ON
Power Usage = 17.3W

Last Test
Wifi-Chromium = ON
BlueTooth = OFF
ATI Discrete = OFF
Intel Integrated = ON
Power Usage=20.5W

Now a suspend was done
Power Usage after Suspend = 44.2W



So to those that were asking. The suspend bug does seem to affect this system. Powertop isn't showing whats using the extra power either. Before and after suspend wakeups seem to be consistent.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Black Screen at Boot


This is in a separate post to make finding answers easier later.

Problem: Switching between virtual terminals with the typical Ctrl+alt+F1 (or other function key) doesn't work.

Solution: Use Ctrl+Fn+Alt+F1 (or other function key)



Problem: Screen brightness set to 0% at boot

Temporary Fix: use the brightness control on the keyboard. No need to use the Fn key to get the brightness to work, just hit F3 a couple of times while booting. This works with the Live CD as well.

Solution: Enter this into a terminal without the quotations of course -
1) "cd /etc/init.d"
2) "sudo gedit local"
3) If you already have some commands in this file from one of my other tutorials then just add this code. If not just add this line "echo 5 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness"
4) Now add the exit code: "exit 0" <--that is 'exit ZERO'
5) Exit gedit, saving your work
6) "sudo chmod +x ./local"
7) "sudo update-rc.d local defaults 80"
8) Enjoy the lack of a black screen.

A quick explanation of what this little code does and a warning for the new users! Ensure that you follow the first step! This command will enable you to fix the system if this breaks anything. Simply do a "sudo cp /etc/rc.local.org /etc/rc.local".
The explanation of this code:
sudo = Run code as root
echo -e = output text that follows and execute escape characters
"#!/bin/s...rc.local" = File text that will tell the computer to set the backlight to 30% brightness at start. Change the 3 to a value up to 10 if you'd like it brighter or darker.

Some more in depth reference material:
Sudo - http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl8_sudo.htm
Echo - http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_echo.htm
Escape Characters - http://steve-parker.org/sh/escape.shtml

Thats all for today. Tomorrow I'll be working on the erratic clickpad.